Sarasota Bradenton convention center closed

The Sarasota Bradenton International Convention Center has hosted its final show.

Owner Oscar Parsons has closed the 93,000-square-foot center, a former Sam's Club membership store, saying he could not attract enough business to turn a profit.

"I'm not bitter. I just wished this hadn't worked out as it did," Parsons said Thursday. "I learned a good lesson."

He believes the center — which was not profitable in a decade of operating — failed to receive enough support from the tourism promotion agencies in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

"They didn't want to work with me," he said. "I got the cold shoulder."

It is a criticism Parsons has leveled before. Tourism officials have countered that they promote the area, not individual attractions or destinations.

"The challenge is that the center didn't meet the needs of what the meeting planners wanted," said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County, the area's tourism promotion agency.

"The meeting industry is hypercompetitive," Haley added. "If you don't meet every single one of their requirements, there are 10 others that will."

Parsons is now negotiating to lease the 17-acre center, acquired in 2002 for $3 million, to a recreational vehicle dealer.

Over the past decade, Parsons invested roughly $5 million to upgrade the facility near Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, which debuted in 2003.

In late 2009, he said he bought the center as a project for his wife, Rose. That plan was derailed in May 2010, however, when she passed away.

But the center soldiered on.

The late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar filled the 5,000-person center to capacity more than once, and then-President George W. Bush appeared there for a rally for Rep. Vern Buchanan as he made his initial bid for Congress.

The center also hosted high school graduations and proms, trade shows and home and garden expos. In all, it held about 40 events a year. Its final event was a Mexican concert on April 5, which brought in 1,500 people, Parsons said.

Parsons, 90, is a life-long entrepreneur who operated Sarasota's Lighting Galleries for 20 years. He began his career as a restaurateur in Kentucky, then launched an ice cream manufacturing company, and owned a General Motors dealership and a bank. He also owns a limestone quarry.

But the convention center was never profitable in 10 years, he said. In 2012, it lost $275,000. It employed 15 full-time workers at one point.

In 2007, amid the region's real estate boom, Parsons put the center on the market, at $12 million.

It didn't sell — even though Parsons insisted the facility had "the potential to kick off more than $2 million a year in net income."

Even a 135-room Holiday Inn built adjacent to the center — which Parsons helped finance in 2009 — did not attract the business group meetings the center needed to survive.

Elliot Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, said his group focuses on the leisure and sports tourism markets.

Successful convention centers, he contends, are either government-owned, or located in urban centers or near bodies of water.

"It's challenging because in Florida you have a lot of resort hotels that have large meeting spaces," Falcione said.

Manatee spent $6.5 million in tourist taxes last year to upgrade the Bradenton Area Convention Center in Palmetto. Falcione said the bureau this summer will ask developers to submit proposals to build a hotel there with about 120 rooms.

Parsons said as part of the center's closure, he sold the 300 model cars that lined his office, as well as the Model A Roadster and pickup truck that occupied the center. Traded, too, was the 1930s-era plane that hung from the facility's ceiling.

EARLIER: The Sarasota Bradenton International Convention Center has hosted its final show.

Owner Oscar Parsons has closed the 93,000-square-foot center, a former Sam's Club membership store, saying he could not attract enough business to turn a profit.

"I'm not bitter. I just wished this hadn't worked out as it did," Parsons said Thursday. "I learned a good lesson."

He believes the center never received enough support from the tourism promotion agencies in Sarasota and Manatee counties, which try to draw the kind of group meetings that might use such a facility.

"They didn't want to work with me," he said. "I got the cold shoulder."

It is a criticism Parsons has made before. Tourism officials have countered that they promote the area, not individual attractions or destinations.

He is now negotiating to lease the 20-acre center, acquired in 2002 for $3 million, to a recreational vehicle dealer.

Over the past decade, Parsons invested roughly $5 million to upgrade the facility near Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, which debuted in 2003.

The late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar filled the 5,000-person building to capacity more than once, and President George W. Bush appeared there for a fundraiser.

The final event was a Mexican concert on April 5, which brought in 1,500 people, Parsons said.

Parsons, 90, is a life-long entrepreneur who operated Sarasota's Lighting Galleries for 20 years.

He said the convention center was never profitable, losing $275,000 in 2012.